Russia can now legally destroy any organization in Russia on a whim.

[DetlefK]

in english
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/19/russia-undesirable-ngos_n_7337842.html

in german
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/russland-russland-geht-gegen-auslaendische-organisationen-vor-1.2487229

On May 20th, Russia ratified a new law: It gives the prosecutor-general the power to outlaw any organization that he deems a threat to security, stability and defense of Russia. (The prosecutor-general is supposed to coordinate his decision with the foreign-ministry.) The text of the bill is very vague and could easily be applied to almost any kind of organization, including corporations.

To repeat: This is not a court deciding that an organization is criminal. This is one person making that decision unilaterally.

Any person or organization that still has ties with the undesireable organization after it has been outlawed will be fined €900 (natural persons) to €9000 (organizations) and on top of that receive 2-6 years of jail-time.



What this means: Pick any entity, e.g. a foreign NGO or a media-outlet critical of Putin, in Russia. Russia outlaws it. Any Russian who keeps working for them automatically goes to jail.

[Matrosov]

1. Can we have this for the GOP and Tea Party?

[Blue_Tires]

2. Sad to see how little attention this is getting...

kick

[FlatBaroque]

3. Yes because in America, organizations that represent a threat to national security

are treated to casual Fridays!

[DetlefK]

4. And who makes those decisions?

Is it one single person making that decision in secrecy?

[Recursion]

5. It's very difficult in the US to ban an association, particularly a political one

It was ground-breaking when SPLC managed to do it with one KKK chapter. McCarthy could never do it with the ISL or the SPA, though he could hound their members out of public jobs.

[MBS]

6. Thanks for posting this.

This is truly serious.

I just heard a panel discussion on the situation in Crimea this week, and all the stories (repression of independent news organizations; suppression of all political dissent, including punishment of Facebook dissemination of news deemed to be "dangerous" - even people who click "like" on touchy political subjects can get into trouble; banishment of Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages from the schools; exile of Crimean Tatar political leaders etc etc etc) were completely in alignment with the implications of the OP. I have no doubt that this new "law" will be applied lavishly to Crimean Tatars.